By Allie Beckett

 

Over the last couple of years, rosin revolutionized the cannabis community as news of the simple “homemade hash” method spread like wildfire.

Unlike the potentially hazardous and expensive equipment needed to create hydrocarbon extractions, rosin can be made with materials found around your house such as a hair straightener and some parchment paper.

If the craving for a dab hits but only flower can be found, a simple squish of that bud between parchment paper and a hair straightener will produce amazingly terpy rosin that is immediately dabbable. Fresh-squeezed dabs straight from the flower, anyone?!

One of the most alluring aspects of cannabis is its innate diversity. For centuries, this healing herb has been crossbred hundreds of thousands of times, creating an extremely divergent range of characteristics and profiles. One of my personal favorite traits is cannabis with a high-presence of anthocyanins, which causes purple flowers. Anthocyanins are the same flavonoids that give blueberries and red cabbage their vibrant color. Depending on the pH, the color spectrum of anthocyanins can range from blues, purples, pinks and reds. Anthocyanins may occur throughout the entire tissue of the plant, including leaves, stems, roots, flowers, and fruits. If you’ve ever transplanted rainbow chard, it’s incredible to see the rainbow colors travel below the surface and into the roots themselves.

In cannabis, a very small presence of anthocyanins can produce vibrant purple flowers and leaves. In some cases, in which anthocyanin was a primary breeding trait, the purple pigment can migrate all the way up the trichome stalks and trichome heads. Trichomes, while microscopic, hold a treasure chest of essential oils and unique compounds in their heads. They can be viewed using a small scope throughout the growing cycle to more intimately understand the trichome development process.

As if smoking purple flower wasn’t enchanting enough, it’s time to take it to the next level with purple dabs! Marijuana.com talked with @Chewberto420, the incredible grower and photographer that put purple rosin on the map, to dive into his purple sea of knowledge. Through trial and error, he discovered the perfect stage in the drying process to extract anthocyanins via rosin. As I briefly mentioned above, rosin is a technique that uses heat and pressure to extract dabbable cannabinoids and precious terpenes from raw flower.

Not all flower is created equal, however. In order to create purple rosin…you guessed it, you need purple flowers filled with our new favorite flavonoid, anthocyanin.

Just like terpenes, the anthocyanin compound is extremely sensitive to moisture and oxidation. The color anthocyanin appears to the human eye is directly correlated to the pH of the flower. Once the flower is harvested and hung to dry, the pH increases day by day as moisture dissipates from the bud. If the pH of the flower is basic (high) rather than acidic (low), the rosin extracted will be a golden color — even if the flower visually appears dark purple. So our friend @Chewberto420 discovered the prime time to extract anthocyanin-filled dabs is right after harvest (about 36-48 hours), when the flowers still have a very acidic pH. This is the time when “the anthocyanins stay mobile and soluble and are extracted with the trichomes, essentially ‘dyeing’ the oil purple as it is forced away from the flower,” Chewy explains.

The flavor from recently harvested freshly-squeezed rosin is unparalleled. The terpenes are at their peak potential and haven’t had the opportunity to evaporate, which in turn provides a blast of mouthwatering cannabis essence. Rosin is an amazing way to untap and examine the true flavor profile of each individual strain, as it delivers a concentrated punch of each strain’s unique terpene profile.

Check out @Chewberto420 on Instagram for more out-of-this-world weed porn.

Cover Photo Courtesy of @Chewberto420